


Growing Hunger, Rising Worthlessness

by AstroBookwormSinger



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dantooine Enclave, Gen, House Vizsla - Freeform, Malachor V, Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders - Freeform, Mandalorian Wars (Star Wars), Mass Shadow Generator, Nihilism, Planet Dantooine (Star Wars), Planet Malachor (Star Wars), Planet Mandalore (Star Wars), Planet Onderon (Star Wars), Psychological Trauma, Revanchists, Tarre Vizsla is Darth Nihilus, The Mandalorian Darksaber (Star Wars), War, hunger, jedi order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28550784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroBookwormSinger/pseuds/AstroBookwormSinger
Summary: He was Tarre Vizsla - Mandalorian, Jedi Knight, Revanchist, General... and future Dark Lord of the Sith.
Relationships: Revan & Tarre Vizsla
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Growing Hunger, Rising Worthlessness

* * *

He was an infant when the Jedi came to his planet. The Mandalorians were already at unrest, with a Cold War brewing between them and the Republic, and his adoption into the Order only made matters worse. He was a Mandalorian by blood, and now he was to become a Jedi. The Order was now his creed. House Vizsla swore revenge against the Republic on the night their youngest member - an infant - was taken away from his home. It will be worth it, the Jedi told themselves - a Force-sensitive Mandalorian would be dangerous.

He was 5 when his lightsaber crystal was first ignited, and a ripple of shock spread amongst the other Padawans. He could see their lightsaber colours - a couple of blues, one green, one cyan (which was still a colour between two standard Jedi colours), one purple (which had led to whispers, but he knew there was another Master at the Enclave who floated three amethyst blades with precision using the Force), but his colour… his was  _ black _ . Its outline was white, and the blade itself was short and was shaped weird. He had picked out the small kyber crystal through the Force. He had constructed the angular pommel and added the handguard because his instincts had told him to. And now, as his anxiety grew, the blade produced small tendrils of white lightning. Master Vandar Tokare has worn a kind face and told him that he was unique due to his heritage, and convinced him that it was alright. Despite the magnetic aura the black blade emitted, he was told that the blade’s colour would not mean anything for his future.

He was Tarre, 16, and a star student of the Jedi Order. He had grown up on Dantooine his entire life, training to be a Jedi with others of his batch, like his close friends Alek and Meetra Surik. He was famous among the Jedi for his skills, his unique lightsaber which he called the Darksaber, and his loyalty to the Order, but he could not help but feel like an unworthy traitor whenever the other Padawans discussed the growing issue that was the Mandalorian Wars. They were his people by blood, and he felt a deep-rooted hunger for acceptance from the older Masters. He wanted to prove his loyalty to the Force. But he watched as the Order did nothing to combat the Neo-Crusaders.

He was 18 when one charismatic Jedi decided to rebel against the Order and go fight in the war to save the lives of the innocents being massacred every day. Alek was there, and he convinced Meetra to join, which destroyed the growing bond she had had with Atris. He could have stayed with the Order to prove his loyalty, but he instead chose to fight his people to show everyone his allegiance. At that moment, the news of the slaughters had made his blood boil. He hungered to bring his estranged creed to justice. He betrayed the Jedi, but it would be worth it.

He had just turned 21 when he engaged the Mandalorians on Onderon. He had been told that House Vizsla was leading the charge here. He, with his dark skin and handsome battle-scarred features and his thick hair in long dreadlocks that were tied up to keep them out of his face - he was obviously one of the Vizslas, but as he led the charge, he convinced himself that his family meant nothing to him, especially since they were murderers. They were worthless to him. And as he murdered them all in turn, he convinced himself that this act was simply a moral shortcut to win the war, nothing more, and nothing uncommon for those who had followed the one who now called themself Revan.

He was 24 when he realised that all the Revanchists had Fallen. It had not happened in a single moment. But it was too late to look back at the Light Side now, especially since he had been promoted to General by Supreme Commander Revan, who told him that he would help fight the final battle of this long, dreadful war. There was an end in sight, a light at the end of this tunnel. Good. He hungered for more action, more revenge… more justice. Was it justice at this point, where the Revanchists had as much Mandalorian blood on their hands as the Neo-Crusaders had had? But did that even matter? They were going to win the war. And the taste of victory was one of the few things still worth fighting for.

He was General Tarre Vizsla, one of the most prominent leaders of the Mandalorian Wars, and as he led his battered fleet along with General Surik at Malachor V, Revan engaged Mand'alor the Ultimate aboard the latter’s flagship. Revan had always been the leader in this war, and he was happy to let them have the final battle. Besides, Revan had promised him that he would be Mand’alor after Ultimate. He had gladly accepted the position - he would finally unite his people and bring the galaxy some peace. He still had to choose a title for himself, but for now, he was content to lead his fleets above a planet where no Mandalorian ever stepped on. Or at least, he would be, if they were winning. Revan’s reinforcements had arrived (a little later than expected, in classic Revan fashion), but he and Meetra were still being hit very badly. And that’s when it happened.

The first thing he felt was a pull. It was not a single, simple yank of the hand, but a pull at his gut so strong he could not stand on his own two feet anymore. Then he realised that he was not the only one being pulled - his flagship, the  _ Ravager _ , was being pulled too, pulled by the planet of Malachor itself in a massive gravity vortex. His crew screamed for help, but he knew that nobody could help them. Revan’s flagship, the  _ Prodigy _ , and Meetra’s flagship, the  _ Survivor _ , were still in orbit, far above them. Unaffected. 

Then his ship crashed, and the screams of his crew members were suddenly silenced. Around him, more ships were crashing down around him in fiery explosions. His vision blurred, and he could taste blood. But beyond everything, he was deafened by the screams of death all around in the Force - allies and enemies alike had been pulled into the vortex. The planet core beneath him was unstable, he could feel it, but the screams of death and pain and devastation threatened to overtake him. His head throbbed. He felt sick. He wanted to scream, but instinctively, he curled up into the fetal position, desperately reaching out into the Force to find solace. To find anything other than the echoes of a massacre, ringing in the Force over and over again. 

Then the shockwave hit - a wave of energy reflecting the pure destruction around and fueled by destabilisation of Malachor V’s core, which burned through his skin, burned away any tears that had fallen and burned away his consciousness. As the darkness took him, he felt as if he was worth nothing.

He had been human, so far in his life, though it was debatable if he had acted humanely in the war. But now, when he awoke, he was something else. His connection to the Force felt dim, not unlike how people were temporarily deafened after an explosion, but this didn’t feel temporary. The echoes of the vortex were still in the Force, but he couldn’t feel them anymore. But he could feel one thing - hunger. Hunger for… what? He found his answer as he tried to speak, and inhaled to gasp for air, and in a sound echoing the screams of pain he had just heard, the life forces of the few crew members who were still alive faded into him. 

Wait…  _ what?! _

He tried to speak again, tried to desperately reach out to the Force, and words flowed from his mouth in a chorus as he spoke a language he did not recognise. He needed to feel the Force, he craved it, he _ hungered _ for it - and just as he reached out again, more souls were sucked into his own. The more life forms he took in, the more he craved the touch of the Force, and the more he lost his mind. He tried to make sense of what had happened. Had Revan planned this? Did they and Meetra know this would happen? Why had he not been told?! 

And as he stood up, he spoke again, in multiple voices - the voices he had just sucked into himself - and more joined. Whenever he tried speaking, inhaling, reaching out to the Force,  _ anything _ \- he would drain more. And the more he ate, the more he  _ hungered _ for - to feel, for just a second, a strong connection to the Force again, to feel full - before the hunger returned, more powerful. He was losing himself to his hunger and his need to feel the Force again. He _ needed _ this more than his own life. 

And so he spoke again, on purpose this time, and more souls were drained into his own. He could feel his common sense ebbing away, but he didn’t care - that wasn’t worth his attention anymore. In fact, he realised,  _ the war _ wasn’t worth his attention anymore. He needed one thing - to feel the Force. And he could do so by sucking away the life forces of any lifeforms he could see; though it was momentary and the hunger only grew, those moments were the only things that meant something in life - the moments of mass death. 

He was once a Jedi, now a Wound in the Force, a void which pulled lives into him very much like how the vortex had pulled ships onto Malachor V. He would slowly lose his humanity and all that defined him as a human, and his hunger would only grow. An old lady with ribbons in her hair and a grand plan in her mind would walk through the wreckage of the planet and find this relic of a war long finished, and take him as her Sith apprentice. He would go on to drain planets and propagate his vision of the galaxy - the ideology that everything that existed was worthless and that all life existed only to feed that void that he would become, succumbing and sacrificing itself to momentarily satisfy his endless, ever-growing hunger. 

He was once Mandalorian, Jedi Knight, Revanchist, and General Tarre Vizsla, now Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Nihilus. 

* * *

Surviving long after its creator’s death, the Darksaber’s journey was far from over. Canderous Ordo, now Mand’alor the Preserver, and Visas Marr, once the Shadow Hand of Darth Nihilus, would walk upon the surface of Malachor V and find the black-bladed lightsaber among the wreckage. Canderous would remember Tarre Vizsla as a brave warrior who fought alongside the charismatic Revan in the Mandalorian Wars, and one who was Mand’alor himself for a brief while before succumbing to his injuries caused by the Mass Shadow Generator. Canderous would hand over the blade to Visas (as he thought it was a Jedi weapon and respected it so), who would take it with her back to the rebuilt Jedi Order under Grandmaster Bastila Shan and keep it there. House Vizsla would liberate it by sacking the Temple, and start a tradition of claiming the blade by victory in combat, and it would pass through multiple hands before coming into the possession of a Mandalorian by the name of Din Djarin. And perhaps, one day, it could be wielded by his Force-sensitive, Jedi-in-training son, Grogu, who just might go down in history as the second Mandalorian Jedi to ever exist, continuing the legacy of one Tarre Vizsla. 

* * *

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I have not written for a long time, and it shows. Please don't mind the bad writing style!  
> This entire idea came to me when I realised that the aesthetic of Darth Nihilus - a literal walking black hole - holding the Darksaber instead of a red lightsaber is UNMATCHED. A void with the Darksaber was such a cool image in my head, I HAD to somehow make it make sense in-universe, and here we are.  
> Thank you so much for reading, and please drop a comment!


End file.
